Implantable blood pumps for chronic left ventricular assist have been and are being developed in a number of forms. For example, an implantable, transcutaneously powered electric axial flow pump is shown in application Ser. No. 08/424,165 entitled Implantable Electric Axial-Flow Blood Pump. Inasmuch as the blood flow requirements of the human body vary substantially and unpredictably with posture, stress, activity, ambient temperature and other physiological and psychological factors, it is necessary to continually adapt the pump's flow rate to the patient's needs.
Two factors limit the usable speed range of, e.g., the axial flow pump of Ser. No. 08/424,165. At the lower end, the speed must be sufficient to produce enough blood flow to deliver essential substances to the vital issues and remove products of metabolism, as well as cool the bearings and prevent thrombus formation. At the upper end, the pump speed must not be so high as to produce a zero or negative pressure within the inlet during diastole (i.e. it must never cause suction in the ventricle). The pump is most effective when operating close to the upper end of the range.
In an ambulatory patient, it is not practical to directly measure the pressure and flow rate information necessary for pump control, because the necessary sensors would complicate the pump's electronics and present unnecessary failure risks.
It has previously been hypothesized, as pointed out in the article entitled "In Search of Chronic Speed Control for Rotary Blood Pumps" in the Proceedings of the Waseda International Congress of Modeling and Simulation Technology for Artificial Organs in Tokyo, Japan on 01-03 Aug. 1996, that the pump motor current, voltage and speed may contain information from which pressures and flow rates may be determined. However, no practical way of evaluating that information in real time and putting it to use in a physiological environment has been determined to date.